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Palm Sunday_ An Autobiographical Collage - Kurt Vonnegut [100]

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member with a statewide reputation.

JERRY: President Whitefeet—Dr. Jekyll—what happened to the endowment, which was supposed to be so big and well invested—the Xerox, the Polaroid, the IBM.

WHITEFEET: [Echoing tragically] The Xerox, the Polaroid, the IBM.

CHORUS: The Xerox, the Polaroid, the IBM.

[This sets off a terrific rhythm number that builds and builds, and consists of the chanting of the names of common stocks. Everybody is caught up in a mad, slobbering war dance about wealth. It ends in panting exhaustion.]

LEGHORN: What did happen to all those stocks?

KIMBERLY: [Sexually aroused by wealth] All those woozum, coozum, squoozum blue chip stocks. Yum, yum! Yum, yum!

WHITEFEET: A clean-cut young investment counselor with a silver tongue came into my office two months ago. I was reading Plato at the time.

SAM: What part of Plato, sir?

WHITEFEET: [Indignantly] I don’t have to answer pipsqueak questions like that anymore. I was reading Plato. Period.

SAM: Yes, sir.

WHITEFEET: It’s all kind of one big mixed up thing anyway. Can’t tell where one thing stops and the next thing begins. This investment counselor said to me, “Lift your bloodshot eyes from the yellowed page, old philosopher. Look at the world as it has come to be! There’s money to be made! In two months’ time, Sweetbread College could be twice as rich as Harvard!”

SALLY: But Harvard’s too big!

KIMBERLY: Harvard’s too hard!

SAM: They’re really serious up there.

WHITEFEET: “Put everything you’ve got into cocoa futures,” he said.

LEGHORN: Oh Lord.

WHITEFEET: Please, for the love of God, don’t anybody ever mention cocoa in my presence again.

SALLY: What are cocoa futures?

WHITEFEET: I still don’t know.

KIMBERLY: I’ll go to the library and look it up.

WHITEFEET: That’s what you’re here for—to learn how to look things up.

LEGHORN: [To Kimberly] Look under “C.”

KIMBERLY: [Sincerely] Thanks for the tip.

[KIMBERLY exits.]

WHITEFEET: If my doctor’s thesis had not been about philosophical arguments against suicide, I would be a dead man now.

JERRY: Dr. Whitefeet—?

WHITEFEET: [Indicating that he is non compos mentis with self-loathing] Bluh, bluh, bluh.

JERRY: Sir—I’ve been talking to the rest of the kids, and we thought maybe we could put on a Broadway musical.

WHITEFEET: Uck.

LEGHORN: The smartest thing you ever said.

JERRY: I haven’t figured out what it should be about.

SALLY: You’re a show business genius, Jerry. You can do anything.

SAM: We could do the story of Jesus Christ.

JERRY: Maybe.

SALLY: [Singing to tune of “Ach Du Lieber Augustine”]

Oh, I am Mary Magdalene,

Magdalene, Magdalene—

I am Mary Magdalene.

How do you do?

POPS: [To same tune]

I have got the leprosy, Leprosy,

Leprosy. I have got the leprosy.

Who will cure me?

JERRY: No, no. Kids have done Jesus Christ to death onstage. (A double take) Say, Pops, I didn’t know you could sing.

POPS: I was on my way to being a star of stage, screen, and radio. But then my dog was run over, and I entered a period of deep depression from which I never recovered. Nobody starts out to be a campus cop.

JEKYLL: Cripes—you know, I ought to be able to do something to help. Come up with a chemical discovery of some kind.

WHITEFEET: You’ve already given the world the recipe for Betty Crocker banana cake.

JEKYLL: I’m thinking of something really dangerous, Nobel prize stuff. You can’t scare the pants off people with a banana cake.

JERRY: Come on, kids! Let’s get cracking! Let’s go over to the Mildred Peasely Bangtree Memorial Theater, and see what we can put together. We’ll stay up all night!

JEKYLL: I’ll stay up all night, too! This is exciting! This is just the kind of a kick in the butt I’ve needed for years.

[All students exit.]

LEGHORN: Who was Mildred Peasely Bangtree?

WHITEFEET: Beats me.

[KIMBERLY enters.]

KIMBERLY: Excuse me—

[LEGHORN, JEKYLL, WHITEFEET, and POPS gather together as a barbershop quartet, and sing a heart-rending ballad, “How Can We Help You, Little Girl?”]

KIMBERLY: You all through?

LEGHORN, JEKYLL, WHITEFEET,

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